Week 2 & 3:

          I continued to shadow Dr. Weinsaft, spending time reading MR images in the image reading rooms. We also decide on a research project that I can work on. Since I will be staying in the city after summer immersion to work on in the MRI lab, we decide to take on a bigger project that will likely to take more than the rest of the summer immersion to complete. So I will be working on generating the QSM map of the heart. Aside from that, I observed a few cardiac catheterization for coronary angiography at the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory. The purpose of coronary angiography is to check the condition of the coronary arteries, to look for substance build ups and ruptures. 

         The OR is divided into two sections, the operation section has the tables, catheterization tools, and the x-ray imaging equipment. The observation section has various monitors that a tech and utilize to support the physicians during the operation. I was told that the patients ought to remain conscious for the procedure, because during the procedure, the patient may be asked to adjust the position of his or her head minimize contact with the x-rays. During the procedure, a long, thin, and flexible catheter was inserted, from the groin, into the blood vessel. Once the catheter is in, the operator will slowly push the rest of the catheter into the blood vessel until the head of the catheter reaches the coronary arteries near the heart. While the operator carefully navigates the catheter through the blood vessel, real time x-rays images are being taken and displayed in a monitor. The operator and the techs all uses these image to guide the navigation of the catheter. Once the catheter reaches its target, special contrast materials that shows strong signal in the x-rays images are injected through the catheter into the coronary arteries, and x-ray images will be taken while the contrast materials are injected. The resulting contrast enhanced x-ray images was able to clearly show the fine structures of the coronary arteries. 

        The procedure was minimum invasive, though I wonder if the same test could be performed non-invasively with only the imaging methods alone.